Roses are Red,
by Empresss.Spiral
Summary: Violets are blue...


_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_I'm not a poet, _

_But I like you. _

-Anonymous

Arthur frowned down at the scrap of paper in his hand. The author was right. She (or he) was not a poet, or at least definitely not one that Arthur would willingly read, and aside from that the handwriting was absolutely atrocious. He had to squint and hold the paper to the light to see if he had actually read the correct words, and the fact that they were, indeed, correct didn't make it much better.

Distractedly, Arthur entered the combination to his locker. Moments ago, he had found a messily folded scrap of paper hanging from the little slot in his locker, and he was still slightly amused but confounded by it. His locker came open easily, being nice and new, and Arthur slid the piece of paper onto the little shelf at the top of the locker. The handwriting was decidedly male, and looked like it had been written by someone roughly eight years old in a compulsive moment of either extreme confidence or stupidity. There were many boys in the school who fit that profile, Arthur knew, and he didn't associate with any of them. The girl who shared the locker next to him was both extremely pretty and extremely popular, and the guy on the other side was very similar to her, to the point that it was awkward for Arthur to be stuck between the two of them as they exchanged jokes each morning. Either one of them could have been the intended recipient of the little love note, the girl as an honest confession and the guy as a joke. Arthur didn't think much about it as he pulled a notebook out of his backpack and slammed the door to his locker shut. He walked away without a thought, and by the time he got to class he had completely forgotten about the hastily scrawled love note written in red ink sitting at the top of his locker.

* * *

_There's another one. _

That was all Arthur could think when, two days after the appearance of the first one, he stumbled up to his locker to find a slip of lined paper sticking out of the slot like the tongue out of a fourth grader's mouth. He raised his eyebrows, and looked around conspiratorially. He was at school early enough for the halls to be deserted, no coffee crazed or half dead students to fill the halls, no couples to make out in the middle of the hall while people were trying to walk. The only other soul he had seen was the girl who had the locker next to his, and that had been ages ago.

It was safe, then. He rushed forward and plucked the note out of the locker, rolling his eyes at the mess that was the piece of paper, crumpled and folded a million times.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_This confession _

_Is long overdue. _

- Anonymous

Well, the handwriting was better this time, at least, and it looked like it hadn't been written with a red Crayola marker. The letters were actually on the lines, and it almost looked like it could have been written by a junior high schooler. He arched an eyebrow and let his backpack slide to the floor, entering his locker combination without really thinking. He ended up having to enter it again, a second time, and then a third before he could properly open it.

His eyes drifted absently up to the top shelf when he opened the locker, and after a few moments of curiosity he plucked the first sheet of paper up, and unfolded it, attempting to smooth the creases out on the edge of the door.

He held the two notes up to each other. They both had the same sloppy, crude handwriting, and were signed in exactly the same way. The only difference was that the first note was messier, the piece of paper smaller, and the two were written using different writing instruments. Arthur let his eyes wander over them for a minute, vaguely wondering who these were actually intended for. He almost felt bad, folding them up again and sticking them on the shelf. It wasn't his fault if the author didn't know where to direct his feelings and poetry to, and it wasn't like Arthur could just hand them over to one of his neighbors. It would be terribly awkward if he gave them to the wrong one.

Still, he thought as closed the locker, feeling slightly guilty, it was a shame that the poor guy's feelings couldn't be returned.

* * *

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_No one I know_

_Is cuter than you!_

-Anonymous

Arthur read the note with a roll of his eyes, and he opened his locker. He couldn't help but think about how cheesy the notes were, but they were cute in their own way. It was almost intriguing, even if he felt like he was reading someone else's mail. Like, say, the mail from Blue's Clues.

He tossed the letter up with it's brethren, vaguely wondering why he hadn't thrown them out yet. It was probably out of some form of respect; if he was sending love letters to the wrong person, he probably wouldn't want them being trashed so easily. Even if they were ridiculous, they were still personal, and there was still a small chance that they could be salvaged and given to their intended recipient. Arthur was beginning to genuinely feel guilty.

He heard a loud yawn and some banging, and he looked over to see the guy with the neighboring locker trying repeatedly to enter his combination. He was failing repeatedly, too. Arthur didn't say anything, instead unloading text books to fall into the bottom of his locker with a loud thud.

Eventually, the guy with the other locker opened it, and he groaned and fell forward, nearly hitting his head on the corner of the door. Arthur almost winced in empathy; the collision could have ended in a very painful manner for the guy, who was now glaring at his locker as though it was some enemy and passing a hand through his pale, pale hair. He turned his head a little, and Arthur could feel his eyes on the side of his face.

"…Yes?" Arthur asked at length, looking up. The guy was only a little bit taller than him, but he was pale to a point that he looked almost unhealthy. Arthur vaguely wondered if he knew anything about the poems.

"Oh, uh…" The guy looked… not exactly nervous, but caught off guard. "Have you seen that chick this morning? Brown hair? Psycho?" He motioned to the locker on the other side of Arthur's, and Arthur followed his hand.

"Oh… um… yes, I saw her. This morning. On her way to the library."

The boy looked relieved. "Sweet. Thanks, man," he said, clapping Arthur on the shoulder. He slammed his locker closed loudly, and bounded down the hallway, still shoving his bag onto his shoulders. Arthur watched him, confused, but closed his locker and exited the area himself when he realized that the horde had been trickling in for the last five minutes.

* * *

_Roses are red, _

_Tulips are the same, _

_You never talk to me, _

_I think that's a shame. _

-Anonymous

Another letter. One letter, every other day, for the past two weeks. Arthur wasn't sure what to do about it. Each letter made him feel even more conflicted, the small stack of crumpled, lined paper expanding every two days as he added another note to the pile. For some reason, he was terrified of them being knocked out of his locker or slipping to the bottom where they could easily slide out and into oblivion. He felt horrible. They were cute, sweet little things, and he was keeping them to himself. It wasn't his fault. He didn't want to keep them, he just had no clue what to do with them - did he hand them to the girl, or did he hand them to the guy? Realistically, it would be the girl, he knew, but what with the company the boy kept…

He looked guiltily at one of the papers, peeping out at him from the top shelf. He pushed it back, for the reasons that he didn't want anyone to see it and he didn't want it to fall out of the locker. He looked around. No one was there.

Uncomfortably, he slid a notebook out of his backpack and grabbed a pen, uncapping it with his mouth. On the little blue lines, he wrote his own note in quick, neat handwriting. When he was done, he tore the piece of paper out of the notebook, careful to tear along the perforated lines, and ripped the bottom half off. He didn't have tape, so he folded one of the edges down into the slot of the locker, hoping it was strong enough to stay in. He grabbed his things and slammed the locker to test it. The sheet of paper was fine.

He walked a way with a sigh of relief. His note read:

_Stop leaving your shit in my locker. _

_The chick's locker is there _(an arrow pointed to the locker to the right), _and the guy's locker is there _(another arrow pointed to the locker to the left). _This locker is mine._

_Everyone's life should be easier now. _

_Good luck. _

Arthur suddenly felt a lot less guilty.

* * *

Arthur couldn't believe it.

_Roses are red, _

His sign was gone.

_Violets are blue, _

Another note.

_Silly Arthur,_

Addressed to _him_.

_These notes are for you!_

_-_Anonymous.

Arthur stared at the paper in disbelief, rereading it at least six times to see if he had possibly read it wrong the first time. Was there anyway that "Arthur" could resemble a girl's name? Anyway that the smudging of ink could possibly make "Ariel" or "Aretha" or "Ariah" look like "Arthur"? He wasn't sure if there was, and the handwriting was written, steady and strong (if still atrocious) in blue ink. There wasn't a single smudge on the entire paper, and the creases were somewhat even and precise, as though the author hadn't just crammed the paper into the opening as fast as he possibly could.

It did no good to reread the paper. It did no good to hold the paper closer or further away from his face. No matter what he did, the words were exactly the same.

He felt the guilt of hording the letters ebb away, feeling completely justified for keeping the papers that were currently carpeting the top shelf of his locker. Something in the back of his mind told him that they _could _have belonged to someone else, so he still should have checked, but another, louder voice pointed out, rather triumphantly, that they were _his_, so he didn't have to care about that at all.

Of course, then his brain realized what was happening.

Arthur had a secret admirer.

…And the secret admirer was male.

He could feel his entire face heat up.

Well, he didn't _know _the admirer was male, but he had never seen a girl with such horrible handwriting. Arthur's handwriting wasn't perfect, he knew, but he _had _been made to take penmanship back in elementary school, something he wasn't sure was on the American curriculum. Anyway, girls tended to have better handwriting than boys, and the handwriting on these notes reminded Arthur of his little brother. He was fairly certain that these notes were the work of a male classmate.

He pressed his face against the cool metal of the locker door to keep it from going any more red than it was currently.

He didn't care if his secret admirer was male. He had lived a life that was riddled with near-homosexual moments, but that was often because of his rivalry with an irritatingly perverted upperclassman. It was the secret admirer concept that intrigued him, because Arthur didn't have secret admirers. He didn't even have admirers; he was a normal teenager growing up in a day and age where teenagers didn't _admire_ each other, they sat in the hallway and practically fornicated in front of the whole school. The thought of a secret admirer was embarrassing.

Arthur didn't know how to cope. The bell rang, and he tossed the paper up with the rest of them and clumsily groped for his backpack, slamming the locker shut behind him.

* * *

Arthur sat in his English class with his head in his hand, staring out the window. His right hand held a pencil, and he was absentmindedly doodling over his notes as his mind drifted off. At the front of the room, the teacher was rambling something about _The Catcher in the Rye_, but Arthur didn't care to listen. He'd already read the book at least four times, and he couldn't stand it anyway. He knew he could pass the upcoming test, so, to Arthur, the teacher was wasting his breath.

He was watching the clouds move around outside, slightly amazed at how quickly they could drift over the sky. A dark cloud hovered off in the distance, threatening rain. Arthur knew that soon, after a cold, dry winter, the town would be drowned in spring showers. He absently thought about rain, and spring, and flowers.

"Kirkland!"

It took Arthur a moment to process that the teacher was yelling at him, and by the time he came back into his normal state of being the entire class was turned in their chairs and staring at him. The only people who weren't actively staring at him were two boys in the front row; one of Arthur's locker neighbors and Alfred Jones. The two were talking about something, but the teacher didn't seem to notice. Every now and then, Alfred's eyes would slide back to watch Arthur, as though he felt that he should probably pay attention to what the teacher was saying, even if he was just lecturing another student.

"Er… yes… sir?" Arthur could hear people giggling around him, much to his irritation. The teacher still stood at the front of the room, a copy of the book in his hand, and asked Arthur irritably to pick up where the last student had left off. Arthur had to ask what page they were on, setting off another round of giggling, and realized that he was at least five pages behind the rest of the class.

He read the page as quickly and smoothly as he could without tripping over words, and the girl sitting in front of him picked up from where he had finished. By then everyone had turned around, eyes on their own books, except for one student who sat at the front of the room, blue eyes lingering a moment longer then everyone else's.

Arthur looked down at his notebook. He had written "_Roses are red, violets are blue_" over his notes six times.

* * *

_Roses are red, _

_The TARDIS is blue, _

_You make me think _

_Of Doctor Who._

-Anonymous

Arthur wasn't sure if the note was sweet or just plain racist. Either way, he rolled his eyes as he looked over it, setting it at the top of the locker with the other five notes. It was ludicrous that everyone he knew expected him to drink tea and watch Doctor Who and say things like "bugger all" every five minutes. He didn't know whether or not he should be flattered by the fact that he had received another "poem", or insulted by the fact that it assumed so much about him. Of course, Arthur had, on more than one occasion, had small children point and whisper in the grocery store or the coffee shop about "The Doctor!" or "Harry Potter!" whenever they heard him speak. Teenagers didn't really differ from small children much anyway.

He ran a hand through his hair - damp, unsurprisingly, from the sudden rainstorms that had been plaguing the area. He couldn't leave the building without a hood or an umbrella, or else he would drown in the monsoon. He tried to only leave the house when it was absolutely necessary. He couldn't stand rain.

Brushing the wetness from his coat, Arthur emptied his backpack of the heavy textbooks he knew he wouldn't need until his final classes of the day. He went to close his locker, but he stopped, staring at the little shelf at the top. For some reason, he checked to see if anyone was around, and he reached up and quickly slid the latest poem down, running his eyes over it once more. Satisfied, he closed the locker and walked away to his first class, something tugging at the corner of his lips.

He loved Doctor Who.

* * *

Arthur threw back the hood of his jacket, sending little droplets of water flying back behind him, and furrowed his eyebrows. It was wet outside, it was cold outside, but it was also spring, and it was to be expected. It was also well over two weeks since he had received the first note, and he was surprised to find not one, but two little notes peeping out of the slot in his locker.

He slid them both down. Attached to one of them was a small envelope, a slight weight to it. Arthur opened that note first.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_I love chocolate,_

_I hope you do too!_

_-_Anonymous

He opened the envelop with cold, wet hands. Nestled inside was a bar of chocolate - and a good bar of chocolate, too, none of that Hershey's crap that half of America swore by. It was a bar of Cadbury chocolate, sweet, British, and delicious, and Arthur raised his eyebrows, touched by the gesture. He slipped the chocolate bar back into the envelope, along with the note, and held them both in one hand as he unfolded the second note.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_I know who's been writing these, _

_And I think he wants to fuck you. _

_- _Someone else.

Well. That was classy. It was the classiest love letter Arthur had received in his entire life, and he had received quite a few, if the small pile at the back of his locker was anything to go by. He rolled his eyes at the note, not giving a moment of thought to the idea that a bar of chocolate and a few sweet words made him more squeamish than the implications of the second letter.

Well, now he knew for certain that his admirer was male.

The first letter was written in black pen, in the same atrocious, childish handwriting that Arthur had grown used to. The second letter was much worse, written in glittery blue gel pen that smudged like crazy. The handwriting in the second letter was also, unbelievably, worse than that of the first, in the fact that it looked decent from a distance but, on closer inspection, was actually impossible to read. It was as though the writer was trying to devise his own subset of English. He was either failing horribly or succeeding terrifically. Arthur wasn't sure.

Arthur scoffed, and dropped the second letter into the abyss that was the bottom of his locker, never to see the light of day again, and left the first letter to join the pile at the top, slightly worried that the chocolate would melt in the locker.

By some stroke of luck, or just a miracle, it didn't. Arthur ate it on the walk home from school that day, absentmindedly admiring the sprouts that seemed to be popping up along the sidewalks.

* * *

Arthur was surprised when, two days after receiving two letters, his locker was free of any protruding pieces of paper.

He ignored it, entering his combination and swinging the door open with ease. He reached for the textbooks he would need for the morning, trying to focus on what he had to do for the day. His eyes kept drifting over to the shelf and the little pieces of paper that littered it. He mildly wondered if his anonymous poet was gone for the day. That might make it easier to narrow the list down.

He closed his locker and fled for Math, trying to ignore the heavy feeling of disappointment that was settling over him.

Arthur wasn't paying attention in English again. He was spacing out, trying to ignore the teacher's long, loud, incorrect analysis of Holden. He was staring out the window again, trying to drone out the teacher by thinking of anything he could - the essay he needed to write for history, the cooking classes his mother was begging him to take (for his own safety), the notes… It was quite easy to forget about the teacher at the front of the room, especially since the man was so absorbed in his own speech that he hadn't realized that a third of the class was dozing off.

Fifteen minutes before class ended, the door burst open. It was loud enough to startle the sleeping students, one of whom shot up, shouting that he was, in fact, awake. Arthur swung his head around to the door at the back of the classroom, only to see Alfred Jones, soaked with rain, battling the door and trying to be quiet about it. He looked up and realized that everyone was looking at him, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

"…Hi."

He paused for a moment, then slammed the door, eyes drifting around the classroom. He looked away immediately when he met Arthur's eyes, and attempted to walk down the aisle as inconspicuously as possible, water dripping from his backpack to the floor. He plopped down into his seat next to the pale kid, who immediately began to interrogate him. At least, that was what it looked like to Arthur.

Alfred gave the teacher a sheepish smile, and began to explain why he was late, producing a wet slip of paper from the office and stating the problem as "car troubles". The teacher looked over it, nodded, and went on with his analysis, and Arthur, like every other student in the room, looked away from Alfred and tuned the teacher out, wondering if it would ever stop raining.

* * *

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_My day was shitty, _

_But improved by you. _

-Anonymous

It was the first time Arthur had received a letter late, but, Arthur supposed, that morning was also the first time he hadn't received his note. He had snatched the little scrap of paper up immediately when he had arrived at his locker, knowing that it had probably already been seen by dozens of students in their journeys from their classrooms to home. From the locker next to him, the girl with long, brown hair was trying to inconspicuously look over his shoulder. Arthur pushed the door of his locker further back, effectively cutting her off. He had the distinct feeling that she would try to peep through the little slots on the front of the door, so he immediately shoved the note up with the others. Seven months of being neighbors with the girl had taught him that being pretty didn't mean that a person couldn't be weird.

He was more than ready to begin the short journey home, and he pulled his umbrella out of his locker, his spirits lifted with the appearance of his seventh note.

* * *

Arthur wasn't surprised by the note sticking out of the top of his locker. He did his ritual glance over the shoulder, trying to seem nonchalant, and then yanked the slip of paper down. The hallway was nearly deserted. He could see two figures making their way down the hall, one tall and familiar and pale, the other with flowing brown hair. They rounded a corner, and the girl smacked the boy, then tossed her hair over her shoulder, looking at the hallway behind her. She snapped her head back immediately, clutching the boy's upper arm, and he tilted his head to the side for a moment. As they rounded the corner, the boy slid his eyes to follow Arthur, but Arthur didn't notice; he had his locker door open and he was unfolding the piece of paper to see what his admirer had to say.

_Roses are red, _

_Carnations are pink, _

_We'd make a great couple, _

_Don't you think?_

-Anonymous

Arthur rolled his eyes. It wasn't exactly easy to picture himself in a relationship with someone he didn't even know. His mind wandered, trying to picture himself dating this poet. All he could see was himself holding hands with a tall, blank figure outlined in black. Briefly, a face vaguely familiar from seven months of English classes flashed in his mind, and he shoved the note roughly up onto the top shelf, unsure of what the mental image was about.

He shook his umbrella out and stuck it in his locker, knowing he would be needing it later that day.

* * *

The notes continued to come like clockwork. Every other day there would be a slip of paper sticking from his locker, sometimes crammed in haphazardly, sometimes smoothly glided into the slot. On one occasion, the note had been taped up as though the other was worried it might fall out. They never had fallen before, or at least not that Arthur had noticed. The top of his locker was becoming to be piled with them, and Arthur vaguely wondered why he didn't bring them home. He thought about them there more than he did at school. He would be doing the dishes and just space out, the words "Roses are red" drifting in and out of his mind. He would look out the window at night and watch the rain, and wonder when it would let up, and when the flowers would bloom. At times like that his brain would toss and turn, puzzling over the letters. He wanted to know who had written them. His mind would reel as he thought of anyone who could have been the author, not minding one or two options but praying to God against others. In the end, he would fall asleep, still completely clueless. People told him he was intelligent, but he couldn't even figure out something so simple.

It was a Tuesday, and there were no poems that day, unsurprisingly. Arthur had received one the day before, and had carefully filed it away with all of the others. He had arrived to school early out of habit. He liked the school in the mornings, when it was quiet. It was peaceful, and the only people there were people who actually needed to be there - teachers, members of clubs, dedicated students. The letters weren't the only initiative he had to arrive early. They had just been a contributing factor in the past few weeks.

Arthur wasn't sure why. They were cheesy, but fascinating, and even if they were kind of corny and from a guy, Arthur was still flattered, if embarrassed.

Arthur was gathering things from his locker, and dropping things he wouldn't need down to the bottom of the abyss. He was a clean person, but the remains of old projects littered the floor of his locker. The second shelf, just beneath the one that held his poems, was piled with textbooks. He yanked the textbooks he didn't need out of his backpack, momentarily relieved by the lack of weight in his bag, and then swapped them with the ones on his shelf that he would need for his morning classes.

He heard voices behind him, a boy and a girl. He knew that pretty soon the hallway would be filled with similar students, and he piled his binder and textbook for math into his arms, intent on getting out of the hallway as quickly as possible. He didn't want to be there when the caffeinated masses arrived. Kicking his locker shut, he whirled around and ran straight into another human being.

Arthur muttered swear words as his textbook fell to the floor, followed by his binder, which promptly exploded. He groaned and stooped down to collect his papers, now scattered over half off the hallway. He didn't bother to say anything to the person he had run into, aside from giving them a quick apology. His hands scrabbled over the papers, trying to at least get them into an orderly stack before he could shove them back into his binder.

He heard a rustling, and suddenly he was in close proximity with another person. The boy who had collided with him was crouching down, grabbing for the papers that were out of Arthur's reach and collecting them into a neat, nice stack of papers.

"Oops! Sorry 'bout that, I didn't see you there," Arthur's head shot up at the voice, and the back of his skull nearly colliding into someone's chin. It would have been extremely painful for the both of them had the other person not jerked his head out of the way at the very last moment. Arthur found himself looking first at a neck, and then a jawline. He was close enough to smell a light cologne, and he looked up to see the very, very blue eyes of Alfred Jones. "Here ya go!"

Arthur's mind went momentarily blank. He and Alfred were in an extremely close proximity, and the extended eye contact probably wasn't doing much for the situation. He looked down and gave a small cough, shuffling the papers in his hands. "Er… thanks," Arthur said, uncomfortable with the fact that he could almost feel Alfred breathing. He reached over and slid the papers out of Alfred's hands, extremely careful to keep their hands from brushing. He didn't want to turn an already awkward moment into an even worse one.

"No problem, man!" Alfred said cheerfully, shrugging his shoulders. Arthur crammed the papers into his binder and stood, followed by Alfred. He tried to avoid eye contact. "It was my bad, anyway."

"No, it was my fault," Arthur countered quietly, making sure his binder was in order. "I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry for running to you."

Alfred gave a shaky laugh. Arthur still didn't look up at him, suddenly fascinated with keeping his binder in order. "Well, don't sweat it, man. I do dumb shit all the time. Not that you're dumb," he reassured urgently. From the corner of his eye, Arthur could see Alfred rubbing the back of his head with one hand, his eyes darting around everywhere. Arthur slid his own eyes back to his binder. He opened his mouth to tell Alfred that it was fine, that he was, in fact, an idiot, when he saw a sudden flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey, is this…" Arthur's eyes shot up, and he saw Alfred bend over, crouching down to pick up a small, crumpled piece of paper with red ink on it "…yours?"

Dammit.

It was the very first note he had received.

Alfred stood up straight, the note in his hand. He looked down at it. Arthur prayed desperately that Alfred couldn't read, but then he realized that they shared a rather high level English class, and that he had heard Alfred read passages out in front of the class. Horrified, he darted his hand out and tried to snatch the paper from Alfred as nonchalantly but quickly as possible.

Their fingers brushed.

"Yes! That's mine. Thank you very much, Alfred," Arthur rambled, smashing the note down into his pocket. "I'm sorry for running into you. Thank you for your help. Goodbye." He turned around immediately, and nearly smashed into the girl who had been talking to Alfred. She had been quiet the entire time, but there was a strange look on her face. She flashed Arthur an odd smile and stepped out of the way. Arthur looked over his shoulder. "Thank you, though. Have a nice day."

"Um…uh.. No problem, man! Have a nice day, Arthur!"

As he walked away, Arthur could have sworn that Alfred was blushing. Why, he didn't know. Probably because Arthur had freaked him out, at least a little bit.

Arthur wandered through the semi-deserted halls, the note weighing heavy in the pocket of his jeans. He brushed the dog-eared corner of the paper with his fingers, absently wondering when Alfred Jones had learned his name.

* * *

Arthur was laying on his bed holding the note high above his head. It was raining outside, and the sound was somewhat soothing, pattering against the window in a steady rhythm. The sun had begun it's descent downwards, so the room would soon begin to darken. Arthur flicked his lamp on.

His arms were extended up, the note held between the two of them. He felt kind of like a teenage girl, rereading the note over and over again despite the fact that the cheesy words sloppily written in red ink wouldn't change. His eyes traced the curves of the inexpertly shaped letters. He spent a good five minutes just focused on the fact that the handwriting was absolutely abysmal. Handwriting like that was the reason that teachers demanded essays be typed.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_I'm not a poet, _

_But I like you. _

_-_Anonymous

It had been nearly a month since he had received that first letter, and he was getting three a week since them. He did have to admire the persistence of the poet. He wondered how many more "Roses are red…" poems he would go through before he had to turn to the internet for more. Some part of him hoped that he knew the identity of his admirer before it reached that point.

The bedroom door opened with a creak. Arthur's arms collapsed down onto his stomach, folding his hands to rest on the fabric just above his navel, the note concealed beneath his fingers. His mother poked her head into the room and looked around, eyes finally resting on Arthur, who lay on the bed doing absolutely nothing. She groped for the light switch, and flicked it on. Arthur had to close his eyes to shield them from the suddenly bright light.

"What are you doing sitting in the dark like that?"

"I'm not sitting in the dark," Arthur said apathetically, shifting his eyes over to look at his mother, "the lamp is on. And I'm laying."

His mother scoffed. "Well. That makes such a difference. You shouldn't just lay there and waste your life away, Arthur. It's not healthy. Dinner will be ready in five minutes." She went to exit the room, but stopped, looking over her shoulder quietly, a complex expression on her face. "Is everything alright?"

Arthur shrugged, but he wasn't sure if she see him. He ran his fingers over the note. He almost thought he could feel the red letters under his fingertips. "I'm fine. I'll be down in a minute. Could you turn the light off?" He looked back up at the ceiling. The lights were flicked off, and heard the door close after a minute.

He sat in the dark for a few minutes, the note still in his hands. He held it up again, and then let it flutter down to cover his eyes and attempt to block the light of the lamp out. It didn't work.

After a few minutes, Arthur heaved a heavy sigh, and forced himself to sit up. The note fell away from his face and tumbled down to the bed. He looked at it for a moment. He briefly contemplated sticking it back in his pocket, but rejected that idea quickly. He couldn't imagine letting it accidentally go through the wash.

He stood up, stretched out, and then carefully placed the note in the drawer in his bedside table. After a moment, he realized that wasn't safe enough. He plucked his copy of _The Fellowship of the Rings _from his bookshelf, and he slid the note between the front cover and the first page. Satisfied, he set the book into his nightstand, and closed the drawer. He slouched out of his room and down to the dinner table, where he hardly talked for the rest of the night, his mind wandering upstairs and in between the covers of his favorite book.

* * *

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_I'm super happy_

_That I met you!_

_-_Anonymous

Arthur cracked a small, involuntary smile at the little note. They were slowly becoming neater, less crumpled and dog eared, and while the handwriting was still awful, less of the words strayed from the line. Arthur wondered if the author was subconsciously trying harder. He wondered if the author would reveal himself soon. It was beginning to get lonely, just looking at pieces of paper that he couldn't communicate with. He felt like he should know by now, that he should be trying harder.

The note went to the top shelf, like all of the others, and Arthur walked away from the locker, mentally running everyone he knew through his mind, trying to find the clue that would let him know who his secret admirer was.

He needed to start stockpiling handwriting samples, he decided.

* * *

_Roses are red, _

_Daffodils are yellow, _

_When I see you, _

_My knees turn to jello!_

-Anonymous.

Arthur blinked. There was a note. There was a note every other day. Inside it was a poem, signed "Anonymous". This wasn't unusual. It had been over a month since the notes had materialized, and it was now an expected part of Arthur's day. He came to school, received a note, drifted off during the day, and spent the entire walk home holding an umbrella and looking at the blooms of flowers, wondering who on earth could be writing all of the poems. He had absolutely no clue, and it was beginning to drive him crazy. It would keep him up late at night. He wouldn't spend the entire night pining away at his window and begging God to let him know what was happening, but a nagging voice at the back of his head would bring it up at the most inopportune moments, whispering "What if…" into his ear when all he wanted to do was sleep, or read, or eat. He was naturally curious. He couldn't help it.

Now, the notes were normal. Arthur was used to speed-walking through the hall on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Tuesdays in a mad attempt to get to his locker before someone could see his little love poem. He thought it was sweet and flattering, if terribly embarrassing, but he knew that if someone - say, that strange white guy with the neighboring locker - were to yank it out first and read it before him, he would spend the rest of the year in extreme mortification. The notes and the routine that came with them had been a constant in his life for the past month.

He wasn't expecting flowers, though.

Arthur felt his face heating up. He didn't blush often, but as he stared at the two flowers that peeped out of his locker, he definitely felt himself going a little red. He was a _boy. _People didn't give boys flowers. Boys gave girls flowers, and girls gave girls flowers, and children gave mothers flowers, but people didn't give boys flowers.

Still, the delicate daffodil, damp from the rain, that peeped out at him was definitely a flower. On the other side was a rose - not exactly the red the author had proclaimed it to be, but more of an orange.

Arthur pulled them out of his locker immediately. Carefully, but immediately. He impaled his index finger on a thorn, and nearly stuck it in his mouth to keep the blood from dripping down his hand. He realized, though, that it probably wasn't the most sanitary idea, so he held a balled tissue to the pad of his finger, willing the blood to stop. It took a few minutes, and spent that time puzzling over what to do with the flowers.

They would surely wilt and dry in his small, lightless locker, with absolutely no water. They were slightly embarrassing, and one of them had wounded him, but it seemed a shame to just toss them into the abyss and let them die. He looked thoughtfully at the daffodil. There were still droplets of water clinging to the soft petals, threatening to slide down and fall at every slight movement Arthur made. He rain his thumb over the petal. It was smooth and cold.

Arthur looked to see if anyone was around. No one. He felt slightly foolish, but he set the flowers on the very top shelf, and then crouched down, setting his backpack on the floor. He dug around until he founded what he needed, and produced a clear, plastic water bottle from his backpack. He had accomplished the easy part of the ordeal. He shoved his backpack out of the way and began rooting through the small pile of essays, projects, and miscellaneous items that had accrued at the bottom of his locker. It probably would have been good time to just toss everything, but Arthur wasn't focused on that.

It took a few minutes of hard work, but Arthur soon emerged triumphantly, a pair of scissors (accidentally stolen from his biology teacher) in his hands. He took a swig from the water bottle, then used the scissors to cut the neck of the water bottle off completely. He gingerly set the flowers inside the bottle, submerging their stems in water.

Arthur spent a few seconds wondering whether the water bottle would be safest with the sloppy, crudely written letters piled at the top of his shelf, or the expensive textbooks that sat on the second one.

He decided on the textbooks. The sweet scent of roses flew up as Arthur set the flowers on the second shelf, just under face level. He didn't even want to imagine how he would get them hone unnoticed.

There was a stirring to his right. The girl with the long brown hair was at her locker, entering her combination into her locker. She looked up and saw Arthur out of the corner of her eye.

"Morning!" She chirped good-naturedly. "Have a nice weekend?"

"Er… Morning. Yes," Arthur stopped and looked over at the girl for a minute. "I'm terribly sorry, but do you have a bandage or something?"

The girl nodded, her dark hair bouncing at the ends as she moved. "Yep. Did'ja cut yourself up or something?" She didn't wait to hear Arthur's answer, instead instantly producing a lime green band-aid from her backpack. "There you go!"

"You're a saint. Thank you…." Arthur's voice trailed off uncertainly as he peeled the paper from the bandage, realizing that he didn't know the girl's name. It was slightly embarrassing, so Arthur focused on getting the band-aid onto his finger in a manner that wasn't uncomfortable.

The girl seemed unfazed. "No problem. And just call me Liz. Everyone else does."

Arthur nodded, examining his work. It would suffice. "Well, thank you very much, Liz." He said, closing his locker with a quiet click, weary of disturbing the flowers and sending the water bottle down to drench everything in his locker, even if most of it didn't matter.

"Like I said, don't mention it. It's better than you bleeding all over the places, right?" Liz asked with a smile, fumbling to fix a flower hairpin that sat just behind her ear. A peculiar expression crossed her face and she sniffed the air. She looked over at Arthur with curious green eyes. "Do you smell flowers?"

Arthur froze for a fraction of a second. He recovered almost instantly and shrugged, walking away. "Probably. It's still spring, after all."

* * *

English class. Lovely, lovely English class. An incompetent teacher, students who acted like zombies when they were expected to actively participate in the class but acted like a pack of caffeinated hyenas during silent reading periods. There were few redeeming qualities to the class for Arthur, and most of those could be attributed to the fact that Arthur had the most perfect seat in the entire class - second to last row, and directly next to the window. The fact that they had finished _The Catcher in the Rye _a week prior was just a bonus.

They were on _Hamlet_ now. Nice, old fashioned _Hamlet. _

Contrary to popular belief, Shakespeare was not Arthur's favorite literary figure. There were many reasons for this. First, he felt that Shakespeare's writing, while still beautiful and compelling when being read, paled in comparison to actually seeing it performed - the way it was _intended_ to be. The other reason he disliked reading Shakespeare in class was because he was always called on to read aloud due to his accent, or people always turned to him to translate the Elizabethan English into Modern English, mainly because they believed that people in England still spoke in a similar manner - despite the fact that the plays had been written centuries before Arthur's birth.

Yes, Shakespeare. The Bard. The source of many, many of Arthur's problems.

Seating had changed as well. The teacher had completely overlooked Arthur's presence, which he didn't mind at all - he liked his spot in the class. It was the most opportune seat in the entire class for staring blankly out the window, and he usually utilized this well to his benefit. He wasn't entirely sure what he would do if he didn't have his daily fifty-seven minutes of spacing out the window. The boy who had been placed next to him had been absent for well over two months, so Arthur was completely free from nuisances all period long. He got to space out without worrying that he would have to explain the entire class to the idiot who had fallen asleep five minutes into the period. He liked being the one to space out, after all.

But the seats had moved. The seat next to his was still, thankfully, free of an occupant, but the quiet, zombie-like students who sat in front of him had been replaced by two much, much louder ones.

Arthur was, however, very good at tuning people out. He was able to ignore the heads in front of him, one a vibrant blonde and the other a color that was pale enough to be white. He idly scrawled over the paper in front of him, writing the same phrase over and over again as he watched the sky. The rain had been letting up lately, and the flowers had begun to bloom. The grass that dotted the school courtyard was a vibrant green, and the days were slowly growing longer.

It was a nice thought, but Arthur still spent all of his free time puzzling over the same mystery, the same words, over and over again. His notes were absolutely covered with the terms. On more than one occasion, he had had to black out one of the immature poems where he had written it on his math homework.

Arthur wasn't paying attention to class. His mind was out the window, and he was lazily writing the same words that had occupied his mind for weeks onto his character analysis of Hamlet. He could hardly hear anyone around him.

_Roses are red… _

"…thur? Arthur?"

Arthur snapped his head up immediately, expecting another lecture from his irritating teacher. It never came, though, and the first thing he saw were eyes, extremely blue and vibrant and a little bit closer than he would have liked.

Alfred Jones was turned at an angle in his chair, one arm on Arthur's desk. Subconsciously, Arthur crossed his arms and leaned forward on them, covering the page of notes with his arms to keep Alfred from reading them. This also effectively brought him even closer to Alfred, something that just served to make Arthur even more uncomfortable than he already was.

"Yes?" His voice was calm. It was collected. It was much sturdier than he actually felt.

"Could you hand me that book? I left mine at home," Alfred asked sheepishly, an apologetic smile on his face. Arthur followed his gaze to the slim, hardcover play book that sat unused on the desk next to him. He nodded and reached over for the book, still careful to keep at least one protective arm on the piece of paper, shielding it from prying eyes.

"Thanks," Alfred said, smiling an even larger smile as he accepted the book from Arthur's outstretched arms. His eyes wandered down to Arthur's left hand, and he frowned at the lime green bandage that covered the top of his index finger. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"What?" Arthur asked, confused. He followed Alfred's gaze down to his finger, remembering the bloodshed of the day before. "Oh. Er… yes. I cut myself doing the dishes last night," he lied. _That's disgusting. Why would you say that? _

"Oh." Alfred frowned, his deep, blue eyes centered on Arthur's finger. He looked up at Arthur a minute later, pinning him with that stare. "I'm sorry. Be more careful next time, okay?"

"Um… Sure…"

Alfred beamed for a moment, holding eye contact with Arthur for a few moments too long, before he broke away, thanking him for the book with a little wink. He turned around to talk to his friend again, and to pay at least a little bit of attention to the teacher, leaving Arthur alone and a bit shaken up.

_Eyes_, he thought. _Eyes are blue._

* * *

The days passed, spring growing wetter and wetter each day. The notes were a strange constant in Arthur's life, showing up every other day, right on time. Every once in a while, they were accompanied by a small gift or flowers, freshly cut and coated in little droplets of water. Smuggling them home was always a trial for Arthur. His family had yet to mention anything about the flowers resting in a water bottle on his desk, but he was terrified about the inevitable question. He tensed up every time anyone entered his room.

He had begun to take the notes home. Every now and then one would come fluttering down from the top shelf and he'd cram it into his pocket, careful that it didn't get too smashed but quick enough that nobody saw. He wasn't exactly sure why he was so paranoid about people finding out, but he felt that the notes were a very private gesture. Certainly one he wouldn't want to share with one of his strange neighbors.

The notes had begun to fill his books, pressed between the pages like dried flowers. He was terrified that his brother would come racing into his room one day and spirit his copy of _The Hobbit_ away, only to find a mushy little letter holding Arthur's place. Peter would tell his entire family, and Arthur would probably die a bit on the inside.

Still, he couldn't help the small smile that tugged at the corner of his lips whenever he waltzed up to his locker and found a poem protruding from the slot.

* * *

It was the rainiest spring that Arthur had experienced in America, and it had begun to weigh his spirit down. He felt tired when it rained, completely devoid of energy, and it reminded him of his childhood in a way. As soon as the droplets of water hit the pavement, he was immediately drained. By the end of the day he had little will to continue on, and he had called for a ride on more than occasion when the downpour was particularly bad, lying to his mother and saying that he had forgotten to bring an umbrella. His mother would chide him lightly during the ride home in times like that, but he would just press his forehead to the cool glass, trying to fall asleep in the short ride from the school to his house.

The rain wasn't particularly bad that day, but the weather forecast had predicted a dry, if overcast, day. The tell-tale pitter-pat of water against the window pane had first come to Arthur's attention in biology, nearly lulling him to sleep before he realized what the sound meant. He had fallen asleep twice after that, once in biology and the second time in history, his final class of the day. It had nearly earned him a detention, but Arthur hadn't really cared; he would sleep through that too.

Still, the weatherman had said that it would be dry, so Arthur hadn't worried when, half way to the school that morning, he realized that he hadn't brought an umbrella with him. It had been a good day, too, until about sixth period. When the rain had begun.

Arthur stood just outside the front doors of the school, taking refuge against the downpour. It wasn't as bad as it was some days, just some light precipitation. Still, Arthur really didn't want to risk it. He looked down at his cell phone for the fourth time in a row before he realized, once again, that it was dead. He slumped back against the building, pressing his head against the stone surface and closing his eyes. When he opened them again a few minutes later, it was raining. He closed his eyes again.

He could hear the one of the double doors to the school building open to his left, followed by quiet footfalls. The majority of the student body had been long gone for nearly half an hour, propelled home by the rain and the promise of a warm, dry place to laze about. Arthur didn't stir when he heard the sound of soft footfalls against the concrete. He was nearly asleep standing, listening to the pounding of rain against the pavement, the roofs of cars, umbrellas.

The footsteps stopped abruptly.

"Hey," came a soft voice. It was close to his head, very close. Groggily, Arthur opened his eyes as though waking from an actual nap. He found himself face to face with Alfred Jones and his big, blue eyes.

Arthur attempted to shoot back, his usual reaction to waking up around people, but the wall behind him prevented that. He took a moment to recover from the fact that he had nearly fallen asleep, standing, in a public place. He was almost impressed with himself for the feat,even if he felt it probably wasn't normal. "…Hello," he managed to croak out.

Alfred was standing a few feet away from him, but it still felt uncomfortably close. Arthur shifted a little, attempting to make the proximity seem less awkward. It didn't help. He could hear the rain pounding all around him, and it just irritated him.

Alfred shifted from one foot to the other, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans. He wasn't wearing a jacket, which struck Arthur as odd, since it was still a bit cold out- not to mention the fact that it was raining. Alfred arched an eyebrow. "You okay? You looked like you were about to pass out."

Arthur shrugged. "I'm fine," he mumbled, turning his head to the side a little. Alfred made things weird. His appearance was always followed by strange phenomena, things Arthur really didn't want to think about. Alfred was just… mildly unsettling to be around. Arthur stared out at the rain, sneaking glimpses at Alfred out of the corner of his eye. "Aren't you cold?"

Alfred looked down, as though surprised at his attire. He broke into a sloppy grin, shrugging his shoulders. "Eh, not really. It is a bit chilly,though." He paused. "What're you up to?"

Arthur gave a lazy gesture of his arm. He meant to point at the rain, but the motion ended up a little bit stranger, more muddled than that. "I'm waiting for the rain to let up."

Alfred raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"So that I can walk home."

Alfred's mouth made a slightly comical "O" shape, and Arthur nearly smiled despite himself. He shifted uncomfortably, hands behind his back to cushion himself against the wall. His eyes slid over to the near-empty parking lot, watching the rain fall with mild disdain. He heard a faint rustling, the sound of a zipper followed by what sounded like someone rooting through an extremely messy backpack. He turned to look at Alfred, but a short, cylindrical object was immediately thrust into his field of vision.

"Here, you can take this," Alfred said cheerfully, letting his hand slip so that he dangled the umbrella from the little strap. "I have some shit to do here for a while, so my brother is going to be picking me up later, otherwise I'd totally give you a ride." He held the umbrella out, a good natured, insistent smile on his lips. "Want it?"

Arthur looked at the dark blue umbrella dangling from Alfred's fingers, feeling a tinge of guilt. He was such an inconvenience sometimes. He didn't care so much when it was just his family, but having a near stranger extend help with such kindness… He felt like blushing. With shame. He should at least try to act less pathetic when around normal people, really.

"Are you sure?" Arthur asked guiltily, shuffling a bit and standing up straight. "Won't you need it tomorrow?"

Alfred shrugged. "Who cares. A little bit of rain never killed anyone. Besides - what would I do if you got drowned on the walk home and I could have prevented it?" He flashed Arthur a blinding grin, and nudged Arthur in the side with the umbrella. Arthur nearly jumped.

"Er… Okay," Arthur said, taking the umbrella. Alfred gave it to him with a smile and a small brush of the fingertips. The second their hands touched, Alfred nearly dropped the umbrella, and Arthur's hands scrambled to grab the umbrella before it fell to the ground. When he looked up, Alfred was looking away with a small cough. "Um… Thank you."

Alfred's head shot back toward Arthur with a large, if somewhat distracted smile. "Yeah! No problem, man. You need it more than me, anyway." A small sound came from his pocket. He slid his cell phone out, and frowned down at the screen. "Shit, I gotta go. I have some stuff to wrap up in biology. Try not to get carried away by the monsoon, okay?"

Arthur blinked, reaching down to lift his backpack from the ground. "Alright. Thank you, Alfred. I'll return this to you tomorrow morning, if you would like."

Alfred shrugged, fiddling with the straps of his own backpack. "Don't worry about it. Later!" With a smile, he turned and bounded toward the doors. Arthur watched him for a minute, then turned around and pulled the umbrella open, completely unsurprised by the Superman logo on the top. He took a step forward, out into the rain, and he could hear the sound of water hitting the top of the umbrella.

"Arthur!" Arthur looked over his shoulder, midstep, and saw Alfred standing at the double doors. It was hard to read his face at a distance, and the rain created a thin veil between the two. Arthur didn't say anything back, even though he knew that he probably should, but just stared, vaguely thinking about how bright Alfred's eyes looked at that moment. He felt like he hade been standing silently for what felt like ages, before Alfred abruptly smiled a nervous, shaky smile. "I- um… Just take care, okay?"

Arthur nodded. Alfred smiled, and then spun around. He swung the door open and then disappeared back into the office. Arthur continued to walk on. Had he turned around, he would have noticed the eyes that turned around, every few moments, to watch him until he had cleared the parking lot and rounded corner.

* * *

Arthur shook his - or, rather, Alfred's - umbrella out at the front steps of the school, looking over his shoulder at the light drizzle in agitation. He folded the umbrella and wore it looped from his wrist. In his backpack was another umbrella, black and dry. He didn't know why he had used Alfred's umbrella that morning, when he had remembered to grab his own, but he couldn't exactly change that now. He looked down at it nervously, hoping it was sufficiently dry, before he entered the building.

His mind wandered as he walked through the quiet, deserted halls. They seemed dimmer in the mornings.

It was a Wednesday. There would be a letter waiting for him. This small thought made him unconsciously speed his walk a little. He would think about the notes constantly, and he would tell himself they were stupid, and that he was acting like a teenage girl - but some part of his brain didn't care. It was a sweet gesture, even if he knew that he probably wouldn't be able to reciprocate the feelings of his secret admirer. It was a terrifying thought, one that made Arthur feel immensely guilty. He still had no clue who had been writing these messages, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. At the rate it was going, however, the school year would end far before he knew the identity of his poet.

He rounded the corner of the hall, idly twisting his wrist a little bit so that the umbrella dragged against the row of lockers. He looked up at the row of lockers that lined the wall, expecting the hall to be completely empty at that time in the morning. He stopped dead in his tracks.

Leaning against the locker next to his, whistling quietly, stood Alfred Jones. If Arthur had been holding the umbrella in his hands, he would have dropped it. Instead, he just moved his arm so that he wasn't ramming someone else's personal property into the wall as he walked. Alfred looked up, and cut himself off mid-whistle, grinning. Just a few inches from his head, folded into a pristine rectangle (the notes were slowly getting clearer and prettier with the passage of time), a piece of paper jutted out from Arthur's locker.

Arthur sped up.

"Hiya, Arthur!" Alfred said brightly. Arthur didn't waste time on small talk, immediately holding the umbrella out. The entire time he was conscious of the slip of paper that hovered a few inches away from his head. He could see it out of the corner of his eye; he had to resist the urge to tear it down right then and there. He managed to utter out a thank you.

Alfred seemed oblivious to his inner turmoil, instead laughing and accepting the umbrella. "It's not problem. I'm just glad you weren't swept away, you know?"

"Yes," Arthur said quietly, entering the combination into his locker and pulling it open. The door suddenly separated him and Alfred, and he heard a sudden _swish_. With horror, he realized that the note had fallen, and he yanked the door back, trying to see where it had gone. He watched as Alfred plucked the note out of the air, and held it between two fingers for Arthur to accept. Arthur did so, gingerly.

"Love note?" Alfred asked conversationally. Arthur nearly choked on his own spit, and used the door to partition themselves again. Alfred just bopped to the other side, a sloppy grin on his face. "I'm not surprised. A good looking guy like you must have girls all over, huh?" Alfred teased, giving Arthur a little jab in the side with his elbow. Arthur stared at him in something akin to horrified fascination, the note still in his hands. Alfred gave him a smile. Alfred smiled a lot. "Well, good luck to the girl, huh?" He said quietly, infringing slightly on Arthur's personal space yet again.

That passed. A moment later he was twirling the umbrella around on his finger by the strap, yelling, "See you in English!" over his shoulder.

Arthur clutched the note between his fingers, watching as Alfred disappeared down the hallway. He could still hear his whistles, cheery and off-tune, even when he was long gone from Arthur's line of sight. Arthur slowly turned back to his locker, slightly flustered from the contact with Alfred. The note was pristine, the lines almost perfectly symmetrical. He clumsily unfolded it.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue_

_You make everything_

_Seem brand new _

- Anonymous

That just made him more anxious. With an irritated huff, he shoved it up to the top of his locker, wondering what the hell was wrong with everybody and why everything had to be so cheesy.

* * *

It had been well over a month since Arthur received his first letter. In fact, it had been over two months. April was beginning to bleed into May - nice, dry, beautiful May. If it weren't for the fact that Arthur had begun to take his notes home, he would definitely have an impressive pile of them at the top of his locker - he was somewhere in the twenties at this point. Most of them had been transported home, but he was still deathly terrified of their discovery. He didn't even want his brothers looking at his bookshelf, so much as actually borrowing a book. Then again, Arthur was almost sure that he was the only literate person in the household, so it was probably safe to assume that no one would come barging into his room with the sudden urge to read something other than _Twilight _or _The Hunger Games. _Neither of which Arthur owned.

Arthur still hadn't figured out who the author of the notes was… though he was beginning to form an idea of who he wanted it to be.

* * *

It was May. Just barely, but it was May. It was a Monday, the very first Monday of May. It was also, Arthur noted with glee, one of the first days he had been able to walk to school without an umbrella. His entire spirits were lifted because of it, his mind fondly thinking of flowers undisturbed by water, children playing in freshly cut grass (God, he hated children), and sunny, clear skies. It was true, after all - _April showers bring May flowers_. Or, at least he desperately hoped so. The weather was strange in these parts, and he remembered a particularly miserable summer when it had it rained all the way into August. Or maybe that had been in England. Either way, it had been awful.

Gleefully, Arthur spun his combination into his locker with one hand, holding a small, messily folded piece of paper in the other. Once he had the locker door out, his makeshift shield from the prying eyes of the world (or, rather, his strange neighbor), Arthur unfolded the clumsy note, vague images of sunshine and summer and blue eyes floating through his mind.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue,_

_The sun may shine, _

_But it's not as bright as you!_

- Anonymous

Arthur gave a small snort, rolling his eyes. He had spent the last two months in some kind of daze, wandering from place to place like a lost, lonely zombie. He certainly hadn't been bright.

Still, it was a sweet sentiment. He set it up with the rest of the sweet sentiments, and set about his usual daily routine of swapping textbooks and note books, suddenly extremely impatient with the entire situation.

* * *

Arthur sat, legs crossed, on his bed. A haphazard pile of books sat beside his bed - well, really, it was less a haphazard pile than a few books scattered across the floor. On the bed in front of him sat a bunch of little notes, some more wrinkled and aged than others. He had them organized chronologically in front of him. There were eighteen notes, all received in a little under two months. He leaned forward, elbow on his knee, head in his hand, and frowned down over them. Some part of him was terrified of one of his brothers coming in and seeing them - or, even worse, his mother, who would gush about her little boy having a girlfriend. Arthur wasn't exactly sure how he would be able to explain to her that his secret admirer was, in fact, male.

He frowned down at the notes, absently picking the first one up, only to let it flutter down a few seconds letter. He had no idea who they were from, and it was beginning to frustrate him. The end of the school year was rapidly approaching, and if he didn't find out who it was by then, then he would have to wait much longer for any confirmations. His secret admirer could also change his mind after meeting some enchanting, bright summer fling, and then Arthur would never know the truth.

He idly passed a hand over the third row. The handwriting was terrible. Arthur was fairly certain that he didn't know anyone with such abysmal handwriting, and he had been going out of his way to talk to his classmates and try to crane his neck over to see their papers and notes during class. It wasn't exactly working.

For a while he had considered the fact that letters could have come from that perverted upperclassman as a way of messing with him, but he had crossed that idea out immediately. The senior's handwriting was feminine and neat to a point that was almost unsettling.

Arthur groaned, and began to push the letters into a messy little stack, which he then deposited into the drawer of his nightstand. He flopped back onto his bed, names and faces racing through his mind. He kept stopping on person in particular, someone loud and obnoxious and sweet and very good looking. Of course, there was no way, but Arthur couldn't help but wonder…

He rolled over onto his side, peering at his alarm clock. It was only eight. His eyes drifted over toward the window, blinds half open. It was dark out. Daytime was gradually getting longer, sun lasting even further into the day, and Arthur was well aware that within a few months he wouldn't be able to sleep properly until nearly ten at night. In a way, he looked forward to it.

He rolled over on his other side and fell asleep early that night, frustrated and irritated with his unknown poet.

* * *

The end of the year was approaching rapidly. The notes continued to come, and Arthur's locker neighbors continued to peak. He had many notes, most of them sweet, cheesy, and absolutely ridiculous. He had begun to go through his classmates, mentally scanning each room for who could possibly be the person he sought for. He had slowly managed to narrow it down, sometimes letting his mind convince him that it was one person in particular, but he set himself straight immediately when those thoughts entered his mind. They were ridiculous anyway.

He didn't find it the least bit strange that his thought process went "No, he couldn't possibly…" instead of, "I couldn't date this person, he's a guy." In fact, Arthur didn't think about it at all really, except for when, during his somewhat constant bouts of anxiety, he began worrying about his family finding the notes and having to explain to them that he was being courted by another male. It seemed like an easier thing to do some days than others.

It was Monday. It was nearly three weeks until school was over, and still no one had come forward to claim the letters. Arthur was beginning to think it was never going to happen. Still, he kept his composure and went on with his life, trying to banish the notes to the back of his head, trying instead to focus upon the finals that were slowly creeping closer, and the plans he had for summer. It would have been nice to know, but Arthur was sure it would all be revealed in due time.

And at least the rain had stopped.

* * *

Arthur rounded the corner into an extremely familiar stretch of lockers, eyes scanning the length of the hall until they landed on the top of his own locker. There should have been a slip of lined paper jutting out from the slot in the locker, just like there had been every Friday for the past two months. Surprisingly, there wasn't one… but there was, however, something else sitting at the base of his locker. Arthur's eyes shot down, and he quickened his pace, try to walk to his locker in a fast manner without looking suspicious or like an idiot.

At the base of Arthur's locker sat a nice, red vase filled with flowers. Arthur stared at the bouquet for a moment, unsure what to do, but he quickly snatched it up. His hand slipped, nearly sending the vase down to the floor in what would have become a dangerous mess of flower petals, glass shards, and water. He tightened his grip immediately, the smell of freshly cut flowers wafted up to his noses.

The flowers were all fresh and newly picked, thorns still clinging to the stems of the roses and droplets of water still dusting the petals. It was a strange assortment of flowers, as though someone had just gone through and clipped as many random flowers from his mother's garden as he possibly could without being caught. There were roses of multiple colors, vibrant tulips, bright daffodils. Daises and violets and bluebells peeped up at Arthur from between the most overwhelming of the flowers. He couldn't name all of them. The smells mingled in a fresh, aromatic way that Arthur wasn't exactly sure was ideal. He tilted his head downwards, burying his nose in a yellow and orange rose, and inhaled the scent. He attempted to open his locker with one hand, and it worked, miraculously. He used the door as a shield of sorts from at least one side of the outside world.

Something was digging into his cheek. Arthur lifted his head, thinking it was another flower, but stopped dead the moment he saw it.

Tucked neatly between a daffodil and a violet, perilously close to slipping between the flowers and down into the water that pooled at the bottom of the vase, was a note, crisply folded and white. His name was written on it in familiar, sloppy penmanship.

Arthur steadied his hold on the vase with one hand, and used the other to pluck the note up. He unfolded it with one hand, surprised at his composure.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_I'm not a poet, _

_But I like you. _

- Alfred F. Jones

Arthur nearly dropped the vase.

An unfamiliar feeling expanded into his chest, curling out and lifting him up. It was triumph. A slow smile crept on his face, and Arthur flipped the note closed again. About a second later, he flipped it open again, staring at the name at the bottom of the poem, written in atrociously sloppy handwriting. It was one thing to spend a month wondering and vaguely hoping and nearly putting your foot in your mouth with random accusations, but seeing that name, written where he would usually find the normal "Anonymous" was a completely different feeling. Arthur was sure it was triumph he was feeling. And at least a little bit of glee.

He felt almost giddy as he gently slid the note into his pocket, not trusting it to back into the vase where it could easily sink down to the bottom and be destroyed forever. No, this note was more important than that. It was more important than any of the other twenty notes he had received, being that this one had complete, solid proof.

Arthur never would have said it out loud, or even to himself, but he almost felt like he could fly.

He looked down, a smile on his face. Now he only had to figure out what to do with the damn flowers.

* * *

It was going to be a rainy summer, Arthur decided. He looked absently out the window, watching the rain fall instead of paying attention to his English teacher, who was going on about… something. It was quite a shame, too; Arthur had been enjoying the brief bout of sunshine that the area had been graced with, and he was sad to see it go - especially when was summer, and the freedom it brought, was so close. Still, he had the vague feeling that this summer was going to be the best one he had had in a long time.

There was a loud clatter from the seat directly in front of him. Arthur looked over. Alfred Jones had shot out of his seat and was nearly standing up, staring down at his book with an emotion that Arthur, who couldn't see his face, was incapable of identifying. The tell-tale blush that crept up Alfred's neck and ears, however, were a good indication. Arthur gave a small smile, eyes wandering back towards the window.

Everyone in the class was staring at Alfred. The teacher turned, midway through writing something on the board in black ink, and frowned. "Is there something I can help you with, Jones?"

"No-no. Sir," Alfred stammered. Arthur saw Alfred reach his hand up to the book, swiping something down and clenching it in his fist. It was a piece of paper. Nice, neat lined paper. "I'm sorry. It won't happen again." He sat down immediately, blushing to a point that he looked nearly sunburned, even from behind.

"Uh-huh…" the teacher said, perplexed. He turned back to the board, book in hand. "Anyway…"

Arthur watched as Alfred slowly unfolded the note with trembling hands. His friend, the pale one, leaned forward, craning his neck to read the note.

Arthur didn't need to crane his neck to read the note.

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_Your handwriting is awful, _

_But I like you too. _

_-_Arthur Kirkland

He had written it, after all.

* * *

A/N

_Roses are red, _

_Violets are blue, _

_I worked hard, _

_Fucking review_

I'm kidding! Reviews are cool, though. Especially since there are probably going to be only a few people insane enough to read this story. It's sooooo looooong.

And soooo drawn oooouuutt.

And Arthur is soooo paaaatheettticc.

...Yeah. Not one of my favorites as a whole, but I like bits of the narrative. But really, Arthur. What a pussy. Sitting around, waiting for his mom to give him a ride? Pshh.

But... yeah. Reviews would be nice! Even if it was boring. I totes understand (I'm talking really weird tonight) if you don't want to because it was boring.

Unrelated, but I'm new to this whole thing, and I still can't decide how I want to set up my author notes. At the bottom, or at the top? Italic, or bold? Decisions, decisions. I guess I could just not write them, and be all aloof like those people who just go _To be continued... _But eh. I don't like that.

Yeah. Have fun. This is one long ass oneshot. I hope the breaks are in all the right places.


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